MTG Salvation

one medium-length towncase in 4 days is not it, my dude

i have some more stuff written but I'm literally just waiting for you and grape to act like townies who want to win the game

i will continue to re-iterate this: you guys are literally giving me scraps to work with and it's so frustrating

i can't believe i'm stuck by myself trying to decide the game and y'all are just Not Posting

good morning

will be ending this game in 9 hours fyi

killjoy, do you have any games from the past 2 years where you were THIS disengaged like you have been in this game?

and I'm going to bed. cheers.

I'm gonna head to bed and then write out a list of Pros/Cons, then vote. Maybe people will actually show up to play this goddamn game instead of me echoing into the void by myself

I think it's like 60% Grape 40% KJ atm but we'll see. I'm trying to be even-keeled and evaluate all of the evidence objectively but my human brain loves playing tricks on me. The NK thing is spooky but again, not sure how much I should be reading into that. It's just that.. did Eco plan to go down during f5 and then have me waffle on Grape because Eco intentionally didn't interact with him? Did he plan all this out? How was he going to win in a Eco/(me or Wisp)/Grape f3? Was he gonna use his arguing of pushing KJ to get there when Grape also pushed KJ quite heavily?

Will reiterate: whomever the townie is here, you're making it difficult for me to get there on you.

Oh lmao that post was unfinished.

I'm second guessing myself sigh. I really do feel like Eco/Grape were going for the W Yesterday, because again I feel that they could potentially convince Wisp or I to vote KJ. That's why they both were casing KJ and leading up to a vote on him,

I have to say that everyone who was NK'd suspected KJ. DV said that Cantrip/KJ was the team. Axel soured on him EoD2. Last was the more likely person to vote for KJ than me.



I was so confident when we entered this phase lol

Let's examine the gamestate assuming that KJ is scum and Ecophagy was trying to distance/bus from him in f5.

- First assumption is that Grape was tunneling on me all game but shifted to an actually correct target in KJ late Day 2 and Day 3. So town Grape here was just never able to get there on me.

- Scum were majorly lurking for Day 1. I'll feel really silly if this is the case, because KJ/Cantrip were the lowest posters on Day 1/2 aside from DoTA I'm pretty sure.

- Cantrip was trying to slide KJ in his townreads by saying that his 150 was classic town KJ, and he thinks that the sharpness of his insight comes from town KJ.

- Killjoy calls Cantrip a Tricksy Hobbit and tries to distance/throw him under the bus when he cased Cantrip. However, if he truly wanted to get bus cred, then he would vote Cantrip/Eco there? Right? And try to fully commit to the bus, in order to get towncred?

- Killjoy tries to hop onto the GJ wagon after "scumreading" two townies, DV and Wisp.

- I have to say that Grape is still giving me a mixed feeling about his EoD. Like, his stuff where he thinks he's dead kinda comes off as genuine and.. it would be solid wolf play to fake that as scum. The other thing that I'm kinda reading into (but I shouldn't) is the nightkill. DV was offed randomly N1 for saying that Cantrip/KJ was the team; would scum Grape really kill someone that was defending him? And I could see KJ/Cantrip playing the wine game I think, and killing the person who thought they were aligned?

- Eco was giving KJ a lot of rope and a lot of opportunities for Eco to reverse his read on KJ. He was also giving Grape these opportunities though.

- So in the world where KJ is town, Eco is trying to distance from him while pushing town DOTA. Eco continues to engage with him about how he's playing the game but shading him in the process

Quote from Eco »

Also I did mean KJ backing down was scummy - I definitely don't like him floating this holistic system to avoid the current thread and bailing on it as soon as it get flak.

Quote from Eco »

Your actions are all just disconnected and it's hard to not see them as doing Things To Look Town as opposed to trying to solve the game by using your tools together.

Quote from Eco »

But, are you? Or rather, you have presnted a few fronts (early NKA pairs, proposed VCA, verifying Axel's Cantrip read, the recent "game flow"). But you've not tried to unify any of these tools - I would expect you to be trying to build one coherent world view, not one disconnected world view per front.

- I have to say that in the world where KJ is scum he's kinda been pocketing me all game and... it's working? Idk.

- In 1174 Eco basically forces himself to tunnel KJ by saying that because me/Grape is a very unlikely team, then KJ has to be mafia here. So again he's locking himself in to going to f3 here or to make KJ look good if he flips scum.

Eco again dunks/distances from KJ here:

Quote from Eco »

GF/Proph is unlikely because I don't think scum-GF's strategy would be to spend the whole game trying to bus his senior (or at least more active) partner. Grape/Wisp because I think Wisp is town. Wisp/Proph because their interactions would be an unbelieveable and unnecesary level of scum theatre, espcially compared to how the interacted as buddies in the Throne of Lies game.

But that you don't know all this makes you look pretty desperate - or do you have some counter argument or behavioural evidence for one of these teams?

More dunking/distancing here.

Quote from GF »

The only thing giving me pause with KJ is that everyone seems to be on board with him being scum. In F5 like this I'd have thought scum would be trying to win toDay but maybe KJ is such a lost cause that Proph is just going to try and win tomorrow.

Quote from GF »

Wait nevermind. I'm an idiot and forgot how ties worked. The hammer makes sense in that world regardless. I forgot ties ended the day without a death and not a random result.

Quote from GF »

Yeah, it's just throwing me that no one is really even half heartedly attempting to defend KJ. But I guess his buddy (Proph) assumes he's as good as gone, and to be fair Proph has been promising a reread on KJ and not given it yet so it could have been coming and I just got weirded out before it happened. Still meaning to look through KJ's ISO today but going to be watching game 6 of Bucks/Suns so it will be slow going. If you have anything you want me to look at just ask.

I have to say that these chain of posts do look good for GF. Him hesitating as to why everyone's on board with executing KJ is a good look.

Quote from Grapefruit21 »

Eco is completely invisible though. Which isn't a good look at all.

This is kinda a dunk on his scum buddy but I can sorta see Eco kind of playing up his anger here to distance between themselves more?

Quote from Eco »

Pretty bloody harsh to be called invisible for having a real life. I'm not going into details, but I've been dealing with some things more important than a mafia game.

Quote from Eco »

Are you really expecting me to be an emotional player here? KJ just is boxed out scum. Maybe I'd be more excited if I wasn't inexplicably being listed as his buddy and having to gear up for a big F3 fight.

And yeah Eco keeps bashing on KJ.

---

My conclusion is... it's so hard to read into anything that happened in that f5 because I feel like Eco may have went into antispew at some point. He's definitely skilled enough to seed misguided interactions as scum.

I feel like if Eco was bussing, then that means that KJ just wasn't very active in scum chat or wasn't listening to Eco at all, because KJ's responses come off as very disconnected and again, unaware of the game state. Also, Eco's plan that f5 was to try and not to lose as opposed to win, because he didn't go after me, Wisp, or GF at all. He just boxed himself in and voted KJ. He was essentially guaranteeing a scum lunch there as opposed to trying to go for the win. And I feeeeeeel like scum Eco would just go for the win?

I still feel like Cantrip's post is TMI knowing that KJ is town, because he defended DOTA and Osie. But again I'm not sure if he sandwiched a buddy between two townreads..?

I need to reread Pirates to see if GF also had static progression in that game and to see if he is capable of faking his nuance.


During Day 2, he was more aggro towards KJ

OK, thought so.

I'll give Grape the last 24 hours but I have to say that whichever one of you is town, you're making it pretty difficult for me to get there on you.

Also would love to see your Grape case.

It's a little frustrating that both of you have not been proactive really whatsoever during this f3 :/

@Killjoy:

You said you thought DV was scum in 475, and you said that you hated his post where he voted me in 493. But in post 629/633 you no longer think he's scum. What changed during that timeframe? Like what posts from DV's make you think he was being genuinely emotional and not malicious.

(Also wow are these post links screwed up)

You tried to remove me from the PoE completely but you said this earlier. Why did you contradict your process?

Quote from Killjoy »

I'm not seeing why you think I should see you as e facto town and why Axel should be completely eliminated from the PoE. I never fully eliminate people from the PoE unless there's mechanics involved because nonmechanical stuff is highly subjective.

As for your summary: Yes, I think I've given you a lot of room to maneuver as either alignment. I'm trying to figure out if continuing to give you room will win us the game or I'll just be MEGA POCKETED by you or something.

Also would love to see Grape show up sometime in the next 24 hours or so.

note to self: walk through the gamestate again assuming grape is town and KJ is scum and see if that makes any sense

also i feel like.... grape would be more excited/post more if he's town, right now

like we just dunked on a wolf right? he would work with me and try to turn this game from a bad end into a good one

don't want to prod on RL things but grape's stretches of absence unnerve me because it reminds me strongly of what i do as scum (post well for a stretch then peace from the thread for a bit)

I'm gonna play some Neo TWEWY and then get back when someone posts.

I plan on voting tomorrow. Maybe tonight if y'all get back to me in time but I highly doubt that.

I'll wait for you guys to post, but I'm leaning towards succumbing to confirmation bias and thinking it's just Grape.

There's a part of me who is very scared to lose to slanker KJ who essentially had very little impact throughout the game, and I can hear DV just lecturing me about how I screwed up and that I should have re-evaluated because I wasn't NK'd, but the evidence points to Grape

Also not to do KJ's work for him but I gave y'all four days to post. That's quite a bit of time, especially considering we knew what this xylo was likely going to be on Saturday (one of me or Wisp would have been left alive)

- Grape has had a continual tunnel on me for Days 1/2/3 and was focusing on Osie/GJ for most of Day 1. He later pivoted to a me/KJ team when it was obvious that he couldn't get me mislunched, but his reads have been very flat. That's the definition of static progression right there. He never really had any change of heart or major reads changes. It's always just been Osie for most of Day 1, then when I made Osie reveal himself it was me. Then Day 2 rolled around and he was pretty floaty for the beginning of Day 2, but soon refocused on me and to KJ. He focused his worldview on the assumption that I was going to flip scum and based most of his reads around that assumption, even though he didn't really try that hard to get me lunched. Like he basically used his tunnel on me as an excuse to look like he was doing something and he never bothered to really debate or engage with me like DV did - I think because he knew he'd get smoked. Even yesterday in xylo he bemoaned his ability to not get me lunched but quickly pivoted to KJ. I think town Grape, if he genuinely had that scumread on me, would try WAY harder to get me lunched and in general be more active and engaged with the game. Or would have townread me, and we would have worked together!

- Grapefruit and Eco BARELY interacted with each other. Grape asked a softball question to Eco, Eco replied. Eco did the same, Grape replied. But they largely kept out of each other's way. Grape was on team Proph/KJ and he cleared Eco because he didn't think it would makes sense with me as scum, but he never really went out of his way to interact with Eco. Eco, on the other hand, forced himself into believing it was KJ/Grape, and did try to convince me that it was Grape, but his primary focus throughout most of Yesterday was KJ (and he was forced to adopt that team because he boxed himself in). Grape said that Eco's walls were "fine" Yesterday but didn't really elaborate or analyse Eco in depth like he did with KJ. The game makes sense if KJ/Eco were approaching the game from different viewpoints but tried to end the game Yesterday by converging on KJ.

- Eco dunked on KJ a lot throughout the game in a way that makes me think that he was trying to set KJ up as the final mislunch as opposed to distancing. I feel like Eco taking the chance letting this game go to final 3 with either me alive or Last alive is too risky - he would have tried to end it in f5. If Eco was distancing, then I feel like KJ would have allowed himself to gain some towncred by answering Eco's questions, but he never did that. Like, I see very little reason for Eco to set KJ up for a bus here when he allowed himself the freedom to go more after Grape because Grape was tunneling me at the time, but Eco never really did that. This is kind of tautological logic but the way Yesterday was set up didn't feel like a crossbus was going on.

- The scum's game plan doesn't make sense if KJ/Eco are scum. Like, what are the scum going to do, crossbus and then have to fight in f3? Eco essentially boxed himself into voting KJ, and KJ if he was buddies with Eco should have gotten the memo and focused on Eco a LOT earlier. Instead, he just kinda floated unaware-ly. KJ and Eco essentially boxed themselves into voting themselves Yesterday if they're both scum, and that's not really a winning play as wolf. No, the winning play is to set KJ up as the final mislunch while you and your buddy convince me and Wisp that KJ is scum, and that's how Yesterday kinda felt. Also, Eco's posts towards EoD when I was re-evaluating had that touch of panic in them - he felt pretty flat and consistent when he was focusing on KJ.

- To top things off, KJ isn't really even that scummy. He's had a fair number of micro towntells throughout the game (him asking me if I'm rusty, him saying imagine if he caught scum this game, him saying that he couldn't leave a detailed answer to Wisp's game when if he's a wolf he just snap answers his two scum and four town) but for the most part I can sorta believe him in that he's been approaching the game from a super uninformed angle - a type of way that I think would be difficult to emulate as a wolf. I feel like it's more likely he's just town and disengaged. As scum I feel like he'd know more about the actual gamestate at least as opposed to constantly being clueless like he has been.

If I'm wrong, hopefully people see where I'm coming from at least. I know some of these points are kinda conf-biasy (like the third, there's nothing really stopping Eco from distancing from KJ... but I don't think he would do that gun to head as it's a play not to lose line as opposed to playing to win)

The only world where KJ could be scum is if he's super disengaged with the game thread, and isn't even responding to his buddy Eco in daychat. But the game just makes more sense with Grape being the last scum. I know he's a better townie than this, is what it comes down to. I don't think he rands town and spends the entire game just railing after me. That's such an agenda-driven push.

I'll wait for you both to post because you guys have barely posted this f3 but that's where I stand on things atm.

Yeah and here is Grapefruit going deep into analyzing KJ/most likely pushing him as the game winning mislunch:

Quote from Grapefruit21 »

More than a little shade sent my way. Scum love to make these sort of second degree pushes. KJ is normally the type to question whatever catches his fancy but this one raises my eyebrow. Because he didn't really flag my RVS vote on his own only to suggest that Crossie should maybe suspect me for it.

326, 331, and 333 for what starts off as a probing question but fizzles into a meaty softball of "you're not scummy but why aren't you playing better?" I realize this is heavy confirmation bias from me but it definitely is a point in favor them being buddies.

475 is a readswall and again I mostly think it works for a buddy with Proph world. His town read of Proph is very ethereal compared to his other town read on Axel and his scum reads are in line with what I'd expect for a him/Proph world. The DV read in particular makes sense. Chainsawing a read on his buddy and agreeing with Proph's early read on Wisp. If his reads are that aligned with Proph then I'm surprised that it didn't factor into the town read.

Just got to the body pillow post and I have A no clue why Proph thinks it should have been AI and B no clue why Wisp thought KJ was robotic all game.

523 and 524 is a progression that is ummmmmm forced? If 523 is a a preview after doing the ISO it doesn't really match the tone of 524 and if it was excitement that lead to the ISO then why is the ISO so tepid and KJ not really disappointed at not finding his smoking gun?

The end of day is inscrutable. I want to read into it but it's not worth doing.

Quote from Grapefruit21 »

Onto Day 2

First post that feels worth diving into is his ISO on Cantrip. And it's solid. It's reasonably in depth and internally coherent. So far it's the strongest point in favor of town!KJ I've seen.

820 isn't alignment indicative at all but I disagree with it on a theory basis. Funny that he's focusing on town clearing Proph now but probably not AI. Despite my confirmation bias screaming that it is.

Then we have the game flow 1 active wolf 1 lurking wolf stuff. Which still just feels agenda based to me. The lack of explanation of why the game didn't feel dominated (lack of consensus) that didn't match up with reality (there has been a ton of consensus this game) just is utterly bizarre. So bizarre it's hard to paint as purely scummy but the use of it to push at Wisp before eventually backing down after heavy pushback is a red flag.

1063 is another red flag on the 1 high/1 low thing because he mentions he's focusing on it because it's the higher win% for mafia. It means it's not really an attempt to solve because as town you are just trying to figure out what you think is happening not trying to guess what the mafia's optimal path is and basing your solve upon that. Really highlights the lack of a solving mindset.

A bit later in the day we see the start of his pivot away from suspecting Proph before this revelation that lead to the forthcoming ISO. It's first noticable when he muses me/Wisp/Dota were scum pushing him. Then he muses that 1085 never comes from scum.

And from there it's just statement of intent to clear Proph and his one bigger post answering questions. I found nothing at all that convinced me he can't be scum. Saw nothing that makes me think he and Proph are unaligned. Saw a decent amount of scummy stuff. I am still pretty convinced it's exactly Proph/KJ.

Quote from GF »

Why can't this be easy..... Time to re-reevaluate Proph. Him not thunderdoming me here is such an insane play to make here if he's scum that I don't believe it. Now I just want to vote KJ here I think and figure out Eco/Proph tomorrow. Still planning to read Eco today but man......

And to answer your question I never rolled scum on MU. Both my champs games were town. As was my The Thing and Tarot games.

Quote from GF »

@Proph if you're scum here that is the craziest play I have ever seen. I know you're still working on your ISO's but what do you make of KJ spending all day promising to try and clear you? I guess getting consumed by TMI like you said but that is an approach to try to avoid losing not to try and win.

If you're town here both KJ and Eco defending you when Wisp and I were working up to a vote is just wild stuff.

Quote from GF »

Eco's walls on Proph and me are fine. I just don't have the time to dig into them right now but like I can't point to any massive red flags at a glance. And his little back and forth with Wisp about my EoD1 feels natural-ish, but like he kind of has to be scum here I think. I'll try to get back into this a bit more in depth but today is a bit busy and with Proph now looking like he might actually be town the game kind of feels easy. Wisp is never scum so if Proph is legit then it's solved.

This is where I do not think that GF is being genuine about tunnelling me. I feel like he's happy that I am gearing up with him on the KJ misexecute and he's happy to stop pressuring me if we all agree on scum KJ. Also I would expect someone who was actually tunnelled on me to not flip a dime based on one post.

Quote from GF »

At this point KJ has to know his goose is cooked and is just anti-spewing. If he was truly trying to figure Proph out he would have done more than just use D1 and say his transitions are honest without further elaboration. D2 and D3 is where the nuance on Proph is, but KJ simply has no interest.

I will be voting in about 6 hours.

I feel like this is Eco just going in for the kill here as opposed to bussing. I feel like if he was actually scum with KJ he would be weighing GF more as an option and casing him more heavily in order to get the W yesterday, right?

Quote from Killjoy »

Oh, and @Proph: You were saying that Eco should have been confirmed scum from my perspective instead of just "has to be, right?" but that's not the case, as I haven't eliminated Wisp/Grape worlds yet. He could still have been town.

FTR my gut is leaning Wisp/Eco based on how they're handling my slot. It's not for the high low thing either, though that may actually be a thing I have no real way to prove it. It's like a blind guy trying to point at a rainbow. There's just no way to know I'm right.

And I feeeeeel like if KJ was actually scum then he would engage in this crossbus with Eco, right? Because that's how you do the SQUEEZE PLAY - commit to bussing each other in xylo so that you come into f3 looking good.

And like I don't think KJ/Eco just come into f5 with the intention to townread me and Wisp and then fight each other. It makes more sense imo that Grape and Eco are scum and they've been coalescing around getting KJ as the final mislunch while working through the game from different ways. And they don't even spend a whole lot of time interacting, while Eco has a lot of posts late Day 2 where he's essentially just shading KJ.